Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan...Record stores, Mad Men furniture, and pencil skirts,rock 'n' roll

[SoCalDem]

Wow... they really came close, didn't they? :cry:

Click the link to see the other photos..astonishing.


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=full
Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan...
Record stores, Mad Men furniture, and pencil skirts -- when Kabul had rock 'n' roll, not rockets.
BY MOHAMMAD QAYOUMI | MAY 27, 2010



On a recent trip to Afghanistan, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox drew fire for calling it "a broken 13th-century country." The most common objection was not that he was wrong, but that he was overly blunt. He's hardly the first Westerner to label Afghanistan as medieval. Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince recently described the country as inhabited by "barbarians" with "a 1200 A.D. mentality." Many assume that's all Afghanistan has ever been -- an ungovernable land where chaos is carved into the hills. Given the images people see on TV and the headlines written about Afghanistan over the past three decades of war, many conclude the country never made it out of the

But that is not the Afghanistan I remember. I grew up in Kabul in the 1950s and '60s. When I was in middle school, I remember that on one visit to a city market, I bought a photobook about the country published by Afghanistan's planning ministry. Most of the images dated from the 1950s. I had largely forgotten about that book until recently; I left Afghanistan in 1968 on a U.S.-funded scholarship to study at the American University of Beirut, and subsequently worked in the Middle East and now the United States. But recently, I decided to seek out another copy. Stirred by the fact that news portrayals of the country's history didn't mesh with my own memories, I wanted to discover the truth. Through a colleague, I received a copy of the book and recognized it as a time capsule of the Afghanistan I had once known -- perhaps a little airbrushed by government officials, but a far more realistic picture of my homeland than one often sees today.



A half-century ago, Afghan women pursued careers in medicine; men and women mingled casually at movie theaters and university campuses in Kabul; factories in the suburbs churned out textiles and other goods. There was a tradition of law and order, and a government capable of undertaking large national infrastructure projects, like building hydropower stations and roads, albeit with outside help. Ordinary people had a sense of hope, a belief that education could open opportunities for all, a conviction that a bright future lay ahead. All that has been destroyed by three decades of war, but it was real.



I have since had the images in that book digitized. Remembering Afghanistan's hopeful past only makes its present misery seem more tragic. Some captions in the book are difficult to read today: "Afghanistan's racial diversity has little meaning except to an ethnologist. Ask any Afghan to identify a neighbor and he calls him only a brother." "Skilled workers like these press operators are building new standards for themselves and their country." "Hundreds of Afghan youngsters take active part in Scout programs." But it is important to know that disorder, terrorism, and violence against schools that educate girls are not inevitable. I want to show Afghanistan's youth of today how their parents and grandparents really lived.

snip

slideshow link:
http://wn.com/1950%27s_1960%27s_afghanistan_was_better_off_60_years_ago!?orderby=rating#

click link on the right..

...............................

another great link to pbase..lots of photos from the 60's
http://www.pbase.com/qleap/afghan_1

[hobbit709]

1. This is what happens when religious extremists take over.

Pick a religion, any religion, and the fanatics always want to impose their form of theocracy on the people.

[eridani]

2. There were reactionaries protesting that even then

One of them was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who in the early 79s got a reputation for throwing acid in the faces of university women in Kabul. Naturally he was the guy who got the lion's share of the money the US put into fighting the Soviets in the 80s.

[SoCalDem]

3. Bitter old men are the same, the world over, aren't they?

Always ready to ruin the fun for everyone..and to what gain?

[MadHound]

4. This was actually the case in many of the countries where Muslim fundamentalism resides today

The trouble is, with those forays into modern culture came forays into modern political thought, including Communism. In order to battle back this "Communist Menace" in these gas and oil rich lands, the US government and intelligence apparatus backed and funded many Muslim fundamentalist organizations, allowing them to flourish and eventually seize power. Now they are striking back at the hand the fed them, the US, and are carrying their countries quickly back to the Middle Ages.

[KharmaTrain]

5. A Pawn In Two Geo-Political Clashes

Our myopic media and culture has long overlooked the true developments in other parts of the world. Unfortunately for this land, it's been at the crossroads of many foreign adventures with few patches of real peace and prosperity. The 30s through the 70s were such a time. Then came the Soviet invasion which would then evolve into the current "war on terror". Also sitting next to India and Pakistan, it's been pulled into that struggle that has complicated this country's diplomatic efforts in the country.

Just like with Vietnam, so few know about Iraq and Afghanistan other than the limited war coverage and spin by those who encourage and profit from these adventures. So many have grown up with American Myopia...a distorted view of the world and their place in it that works against this country when it gets entangled in foreign incursions.

[madrchsod]

6. iraq was the most advanced country in the middle east...

and look at what 20+years of war has done to their society.

[JNelson6563]

7. Terrible.

Thanks for posting.

[brooklynite]

8. Yes but...

As (relatively) idyllic as the pictures are, I suspect they weren't indicative of life almost anywhere outside of Kabul. Just as NYC is "Sodom & Gomorrah" to Christian Conservatives, I suspect Kabul was looked on with some suspicion by most small town and countryside residents in the rest of Afghanistan.

[SoCalDem]

9. true, but the younger people in a society are usually

the ones who see the future, and want it to be "better".. When whole generations are stifled & driven back in time, the country has to suffer.

Like in the US, "big city" ideas eventually spill over into other areas, unless they are squashed like bugs, in their infancy:(